CoP: Maloney residents to access curfew permits at police liaison centres

Res­i­dents of the Mal­oney hous­ing de­vel­op­ment will be able to ap­ply for per­mits to en­ter and leave the closed area through two po­lice mi­cro-units be­ing es­tab­lished in the com­mu­ni­ty, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has said.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence to­day, Gue­var­ro said the units would op­er­ate as com­mu­ni­ty li­ai­son cen­tres, al­low­ing res­i­dents to com­mu­ni­cate with po­lice, ob­tain per­mits and pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to as­sist with on­go­ing op­er­a­tions.

He said the fa­cil­i­ties were be­ing set up fol­low­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of Mal­oney as a closed area un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, 2026.

The de­ci­sion fol­lowed a vi­ral video show­ing chil­dren and oth­er res­i­dents run­ning for cov­er dur­ing gun­fire at the Mal­oney Build­ings on Mon­day.

Gue­var­ro said he was deeply dis­turbed by the footage and im­me­di­ate­ly con­tact­ed di­vi­sion­al com­man­der Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Aval­on Frank, di­rect­ing that ac­tion be tak­en.

He said a se­ries of tra­di­tion­al polic­ing op­er­a­tions fol­lowed, but in­tel­li­gence con­tin­ued to point to an es­ca­lat­ing and dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion in­volv­ing gangs us­ing the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment as a place of refuge.

The in­tel­li­gence al­so in­di­cat­ed that his­tor­i­cal gang con­flicts could re­sult in fa­tal reprisals and fur­ther vi­o­lence, with in­no­cent res­i­dents caught in the cross­fire.

“Hav­ing care­ful­ly re­viewed the in­tel­li­gence, the op­er­a­tional as­sess­ments, and the le­gal re­quire­ments, I took the nec­es­sary steps to in­voke pro­vi­sions of the Se­cure Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act 2026,” Gue­var­ro said.

The Pres­i­dent sub­se­quent­ly ex­er­cised au­thor­i­ty un­der Sec­tion 11(1) of the Act to de­clare the Mal­oney hous­ing de­vel­op­ment a closed area. A night­ly cur­few from 9 pm to 5 am was al­so im­posed.

Gue­var­ro said the leg­is­la­tion was en­act­ed to be used when cir­cum­stances de­mand­ed it, adding that the ev­i­dence and in­tel­li­gence had been as­sessed and the thresh­old pre­scribed by Par­lia­ment had been met.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns about the use of body-worn cam­eras dur­ing the op­er­a­tions, Gue­var­ro said the po­lice had on­ly about 100 us­able cam­eras at present and were in the process of procur­ing ad­di­tion­al units.

“As long as body cams are avail­able, they are utilised,” he said, adding that not all of­fi­cers in­volved in the op­er­a­tion would have been equipped with one.

Asked how long Mal­oney would re­main a closed area, Gue­var­ro said the op­er­a­tion would con­tin­ue for as long as was law­ful­ly nec­es­sary to en­sure pub­lic safe­ty.

He said he would not dis­close the scope, tim­ing or ex­tent of cur­rent and fu­ture op­er­a­tions, cit­ing op­er­a­tional se­cu­ri­ty.

Gue­var­ro al­so re­ject­ed con­cerns that the po­lice were in­fring­ing on cit­i­zens' rights, say­ing of­fi­cers were trained in hu­man rights and were ex­pect­ed to op­er­ate with­in the law.

He said res­i­dents he en­coun­tered dur­ing a vis­it to Mal­oney last night ex­pressed re­lief at the pres­ence of po­lice and sol­diers, de­spite the in­con­ve­nience caused by re­stric­tions on move­ment.

“As long as I hold the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, I will utilise every law­ful pow­er and every law­ful au­thor­i­ty and every law­ful tool avail­able to me to pro­tect the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.